Quincy celebrates Flag Day with 63rd parade

The annual Flag Day parade kicked off Saturday evening at Quincy High School. The event has taken place for 63 years. "If you're going to go to a flag day, you have to go to Quincy's," NQHS teacher Phillip Hardin told ROTC students from No. Quincy High School. Fireworks followed.

“If you’re going to go to a Flag Day, you have to go to Quincy’s,” North Quincy High School teacher Phillip Hardin told ROTC students from the school before the parade stepped off.

The parade included service organizations, sports teams, clowns, marching bands and military organizations marching, riding and accompanying floats.

Hundreds of spectators lined the parade route. Handing out free American flags on an orange moped close to the parade’s start was Marine Corps League chaplain Wayne Scott, 74, who has been attending the Flag Day parade for years. Two toddlers ran up to him where he was stopped at a corner and thanked him before running off with the flags blowing in the wind.

The Flag Day parade was founded in 1952 by the late Richard J. Koch, a longtime city parks director and father of current Mayor Thomas Koch.

At the start of the parade at Quincy High School and Coddington Street were Wayne Batton and his wife, Chris, who won the Richard J. Koch Youth Service Award this year for running a T-ball league out of Houghs Neck with more than 200 youngsters.

“My wife and I founded an organization called Houghs Neck T-ball,” Wayne Batton said. “We take kids 3 to 7 and play T-ball. We had our last day today.”

He said the league started in 2002 after the founder of a T-ball league in Wollaston died.

Joe Paluzzi was dressed as a Revolutionary figure and joined his colleagues at the parade to educate the public about that era. He said Flag Day is all about “giving those in the past a voice in the present.”

Paluzzi said young people need to remember the importance of Flag Day: “It’s their country’s history,”. he said. “They should learn.”

North Quincy High’s marching band and ROTC participated in the parade.

North Quincy High student Michael Truong, 16, said it is important to honor Flag Day as part of his commitment to ROTC.